


the silences that litter the heart

by Dialux



Series: the memory of things becomes the reality of things [4]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst and Humor, Gen, Stories About The Past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:35:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28566285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dialux/pseuds/Dialux
Summary: “She wouldn’t hurt us, I think,” says Maedhros. “Findis was never cruel. Not like…”His father, Fingon finished in his mind.[Elrond is curious about the aunt he's never heard much of. Maglor, Maedhros, Finrod and Fingon try to explain.]
Relationships: Elrond Peredhel & Maglor | Makalaurë, Fingon | Findekáno & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Series: the memory of things becomes the reality of things [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104989
Kudos: 48





	the silences that litter the heart

**Author's Note:**

> Set a little while before Findis returns from exile.

“How is she?” asks Elrond, folding his arms in his lap.

“Hm?” Fingon glances up- he’s been thinking about Aredhel, gone now for a proper fortnight, and Celegorm, who disappeared with her. “Who?”

“Findis.” Elrond hesitates. “Great-Aunt Findis?”

“Aunt’s fine,” says Maglor, rolling his eyes. “She’s been aunt to everyone else: even Idril calls her that. Celebrimbor does too.”

“What do you mean, how is she?” asks Fingon. “I’m hoping she’s fine? I haven’t seen her in six thousand years- I certainly don’t know.”

“I meant her- personality.” Elrond frowns. “I’ve heard about everyone else; even Indis. But the histories always glossed over her, and nobody else truly spoke of her ever- I didn’t think she was so close to all of you- especially you, Maglor!”

“Well, what do you know?” asks Maedhros.

They’re all seated about a neat little table, constructed by Fingon and padded with thick, soft cushions. It’s just low enough that their knees must fold up a little, and can serve as a proper plate rest if they’re looking to eat, or for paperwork if one has a decent hard backing behind it. The sun is shining, and the birds are chirping, and Fingon can’t exactly remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself quite this much, relaxing with Maedhros and Maglor and Finrod and Elrond, even if Finrod’s been lost in his own thoughts and not much for company.

“That she went to Vanyamar with Indis,” says Elrond. “After you left, I think, but that’s an assumption; the histories never mentioned.”

“It must have been after I left,” says Maedhros thoughtfully. “And after the First Kinslaying, I think, because Finarfin only turned back after that. She was certainly ruling over the Noldor until then.”

“Then she did go to Vanyamar,” says Fingon, “but not for herself, I wouldn’t think. Not when she stayed there for so long.”

“Oh, I’d forgotten that,” says Maglor, and shakes his head before explaining to Elrond. “Aunt Findis wouldn’t stay in one place if her feet were nailed to the earth- she hated it. She wandered, from Vanyamar to Tirion to Alqualonde, and even when Father was at his angriest with Fingolfin she’d visit our home on the outskirts of Tirion after living with Fingolfin- it was like the normal rules didn’t apply to her, of propriety and politics.”

“You would know,” mutters Finrod.

“She taught me singing,” Maglor tells Elrond, and glares at Finrod with manufactured outrage. “Either be a part of the conversation or don’t! I’m never sure if I should ignore you or not.” Then, sniffing, he continues, “Well, not all of it. But Maedhros was not going to go into Father’s forge, and I wasn’t much better, and it was quite clear that Celegorm wouldn’t have followed after smithing even if he had a knife to his throat! And that was clear when he was too young to be allowed into a forge, and Father wasn’t quite willing to accept that  _ none  _ of his sons would follow him. It was Findis who told Father that she’d take me on as an apprentice. Unofficially, of course, but without that I don’t know if he’d have accepted that my joy wasn’t in creating things.”

Fingon snorts. “She sang to the Valar, didn’t she? That was her mastery. I still can’t believe they were so close- Findis and Fëanor, I mean. Everything she was seemed to be made to anger Fëanor, and still they were better off than with any other sibling! Even Lalwen, who’s- by  _ far-  _ the easiest to get along with!”

“Her mastery wasn’t in songs to the Valar,” says Finrod. “That’s like saying that Fëanor’s mastery was in forge-work. Findis’ mastery was in songs of grief, do you remember? Like Fëanor’s was in jewelry. They did other things, but that was their joy.”

“I remember that one,” says Maglor, shuddering. “On our way back to Tirion, after Grandfather died: my horse nearly ran into the ocean- it was hard enough, trying to work up the courage to return from exile, and then  _ that  _ song....”

“Well,  _ I  _ heard that nobody’s heard Findis’ mastery song,” says Fingon, leaning forward. This is a bit of gossip that he’s certain everybody save for Elrond has heard, who obliges him with suitably wide eyes. “Nobody but the Song Masters, and even when they heard it to approve of her mastery, it drove one of them to madness, and the others spent years recovering in Lorien for how it shattered them.”

“Irmo says her grief was as a blade,” says Finrod. “And Father says that her rage was as an axe. I never understood- what  _ did  _ happen that day that you were all banished to Formenos?”

Fingon shivers- internally- at that question. Of course Finrod doesn’t know; he’d been in Tirion when Findis rode out to meet with Fëanor. 

But Fingon will never forget the way Findis had looked: it had been so frightening, to know that his aunt, who was the smallest of all Finwë’s children by some measure, could look so terrible and fell and furious. Fëanor’s actions had been cruel beyond all reason, but Fingon won’t ever forget the way she’d sung, and he  _ had  _ to obey, without hesitation. He hadn’t had a frame of reference for it then, but he does now: the great, gusting winds over the plains of Beleriand; those winds which could shatter trees, which broke stormwinds with their ferocity, which caused duststorms larger across than entire kingdoms.

He doesn’t know what shows on his face, nor on Maedhros’, but Maglor’s gone the color of whey and his fingers aren’t strumming the harp any longer, and both Elrond and Finrod look alarmed.

“Nevermind, then,” says Finrod hastily. “I only ask because- well- I sent Aredhel and Celegorm after her. And Father told me when I went searching to be careful, because she’s never been one to let others change her choices.”

It takes Fingon a moment to realize what Finrod’s saying, and even then his gut instinct is to protest. Findis had never been close to Fingon, perhaps; he’d been born at a peculiar age such that she hadn’t been present for long stretches, first because she’d taken Maglor on as an apprentice and second because of a commission in an outlying village close to Alqualonde regarding some historical matter; by the time she returned, he’d been at that age when any adult’s words seemed both unimportant and irritating. It had taken a lot to put up with Fingon at that age, and Findis hadn’t had either the time or the patience for it. 

She’d still helped him convince his father to send him to Vanyamar for spear training. Fingon’s certain that she wouldn’t hurt any of them. 

“She wouldn’t hurt us, I think,” says Maedhros. “Findis was never cruel. Not like…”

His father, Fingon finished in his mind.

Fëanor  _ had  _ been hurtful, and deliberately so. But when provoked, Findis had proven capable of pushing back, and pushing back with pointed, personalized viciousness. Perhaps she had unknown depths. Fingon opens his mouth to say so, but Maglor beats him to it, smiling faintly.

“No,” agrees Maglor. “Not cruel.”

“So she was close to all of you,” surmises Elrond, carefully- if not subtly- changing the topic.

“I expected her to be the third person to embrace me after re-embodiment,” says Finrod wryly. “It was quite the surprise when I realized she wasn’t there.”

“So why’d she go to Vanyamar, then?” asks Fingon. “I never did understand that bit.”

“For Indis, I’d think,” says Maedhros. “Finwë’s death must have hit her hard. I don’t remember seeing her before we left, but we saw what happened to spouses when their loved ones passed.”

Elrond frowns, and Maglor elaborates: “Our bonds were always open back then- none of us could imagine something going wrong in Aman, you know. We learned quickly though!”

“It’s quite the miracle that Indis didn’t go mad when Grandfather died,” says Fingon.

“It was bad,” says Finrod, face shadowed. “She was barely speaking: Findis had to do everything for her, from feeding to bathing to talking. But I think Findis couldn’t do even that much of that, because she had to rule over Tirion when we all left. She probably thought Grandmother would do better in Vanyamar than here.”

“Which was a fair enough guess,” Fingon feels obliged to point out. 

Elrond frowns. “So she was close to all of you? Even- your brothers?”

“Yes,” says Maedhros. “Always.  _ Especially _ to our family- Fingon and Finrod’s families had Lalwen, I suppose, but Father never got on very well with her after she poured honey over his forge.”

“Maglor and Celegorm were worse children than Lalwen by far,” says Finrod, flexing his fingers. “And the twins were as uncontrollable as ever. Honestly. You’d think Fëanor’d would have more patience!”

“Ah, but the rest of us all calmed him: just in time for the Ambarussa,” says Maglor. “You should have seen how Mother laughed when they poured honey over all his work surfaces as a begetting day present.”

“Fëanorians,” says Maedhros, shaking his head with mock grief. “Well, I always told myself that if I could wrangle all of you, I could wrangle anyone; I suppose it was managing the Ambarussa that gave my father enough confidence to speak out against the Valar.  _ ‘If I can raise them to adulthood, I don’t suppose the Valar can do anything to me!’” _

Finrod raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t he once say that two of any of his sons would be worth an army?”

“That saying!” exclaims Elrond, laughing. “Yes, I know it well:  _ Two of my sons would be worth an army, and three a kingdom- but four would be a war brewed and bursting on a doorstep.”  _ He takes in Maedhros’ shaking shoulders and Maglor’s determinedly blank face, and laughs again. “I don’t wish to know what he thought of all seven of you!”

“Bah,” says Fingon, shoving at Maedhros, who’s gone into silent hysterics at his side. “Fëanor always thought the best of his family: it takes at least five of you in any room to cause a war. Always such overestimation!”

“Arwen once wanted me to give her a younger sibling,” says Elrond, lips twitching. “When I told Celebrian… she said she had no desire for a war within our household, and three was well enough for her.”

“Fëanorians,” mimics Finrod, sending Maedhros into a fresh wave of laughter. 

Maglor shakes his head, and strums a chord on the harp that manages to be heard over them all, but his expression’s marginally warmer: it always softens him when Elrond refers to himself as a Fëanorian and not a Nolofinwëan, which Fingon would take more of an issue with if it weren’t that there’s so few things that can remind Maglor of joy and love these days. “Well, that’s the story, Elrond,” says Maglor. “We were all close to Aunt Findis: she’d done a bit of everything, you see, before she chose her mastery, and so she could discuss something with all of us. And she liked talking to us, even from a very young age.”

“None of you spoke much about her in Middle-Earth,” says Elrond, still smiling.

“No, we didn’t,” says Maedhros, sitting up straighter and wiping at his mouth. The shadow of amusement still lingers about his face, though nothing greater than that. “It was a cold, dark time, and Findis belonged to brighter memories. We- at least I-” he sends a look at Maglor that Fingon cannot read, “-didn’t want to think about her very much. Not by then.”

“And we were angry, too,” says Maglor. He sighs, and the strum changes a little, lending the notes an unhappy lilt. “For a very long time. Remember that our flight to Endore was made of rage and vengeance; we wanted to avenge our grandfather just as much as we wanted to get those Silmarils back. And Findis was his daughter. How can any child just accept the death of her father without wanting- blood, and pain, and death in return?”

“A rhetorical question,” Finrod assures Elrond, who’s gone a little white-knuckled and pale at Maglor’s speech. “And only that, I think; after all, they’ve all accepted that it was wiser to remain in Aman than run off to Beleriand as we did!”

“Speak for yourself,” Fingon tells Maglor haughtily. “I certainly did not go for our grandfather or for those jewels you all wanted back- I wanted to win honor and glory. And I suppose I did! Though it ended in darkness and loss: well, we’re all back now, are we not, and is not all well that ends well?”

_ “Another _ rhetorical question,” says Finrod, sounding about as resigned as he ever gets.

“I can see why it took Mandos so long to release them,” says Elrond, and laughs, dispelling the last of the shadows still clinging to them. “Not an ounce of repentance in any of their bones!”

"No," says Finrod. "Or else they could've been released ages earlier. And they call themselves intelligent!"

Fingon reaches over to yank at Finrod's braids, and Maedhros rolls to help him, and Maglor strums his harp with both laughter and joy- and if they are none of them so bright as they were under the Trees, they are all of them far more aware of their joys now, and that, thinks Fingon, _that_ is worth more than any of them can truly speak.


End file.
